Erica Vander Sande on pivoting with AI, handing worry over to God, and learning when to step in and when to stay stepped out.

Erica opens this episode with a picture that has been on her heart: a giant, roaring river carving through the landscape, and everyone she knows being carried along by the rapids. Clients, team members, her kids, her husband, her friends. It feels like we are all being asked to let go of something at the same time.

For Erica, a big part of that is AI. After seven and a half years of running The Mina Company, she is modernizing how her agency works almost daily, which means some services, processes, and even some revenue may need to go. She loves the challenge, but she is honest about the unsteadiness it brings, and about how not everyone on her team feels the same way.

From there the episode gets personal and practical. Erica shares how she makes business decisions through daily meditation and conversations with God, including a very real debate over a spare office desk. She talks about letting go at home too, like the night her daughter came home with a disappointing history test grade and Erica chose not to spiral. She also walks through the energetic box and backpack visualization she uses to hand off anxiety, shame, and dread, and what stepping into a leadership season looks like when you are done doing everything yourself.

• A world in the rapids. Erica explains why this season feels like everyone is being forced to pivot at once, and why letting go is a muscle that gets stronger with practice.
• AI and the shaking ground. How constant change in the digital world is pushing Erica to rethink services, processes, and revenue at The Mina Company, and why she is loving the challenge even when it is unsettling.
• Settling the ground for her team. Erica talks about her role as a leader in helping people who do not thrive on change feel steady while things are shifting.
• Business meetings with God. How Erica uses meditation and daily conversations with her higher power to make decisions, including whether to keep paying for an empty desk heading into Q4.
• Trusting intuition over AI. Why Erica relies on gut feelings and spiritual guidance for the big calls, like when to hire and when to slow down, even while using AI for so much else.
• Letting go at home. Erica shares the story of her fifth grade daughter's history test, and how choosing not to make it about herself turned a stressful moment into a simple plan.
• The energetic box and backpack. The visualization Erica uses to hand over anxiety, dread, and shame, and why she calls it one of the most freeing things she does.
• Letting your team lead. What it looks like to watch someone else own a task, make mistakes, and fix them, and how Erica decides when to step back in.
• Becoming the student again. Erica shares why she wants a peer group of women who are further along in business and AI, and why she is choosing to be a learner in this season instead of the guide.
• Honest friends are gold. A short story about a sales email she almost took seriously, and the friend who set her straight in one sentence.
• Is this a peace worthy mission? Erica leaves listeners with a simple filter for decisions: lead with peace, and go wrestle with whatever feels off.

• Business inquiries: The Mina Company
• Personal connection and coaching: Erica Vander Sande

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